IntroductionIn the midst of a pneumonia-enforced
convalescence this year, ongoing bed rest prompted a search of our bookshelves
for a lightweight distraction that would be more pictorial than probing
(we live in a TV-free household). I came across People's Century,
a coffee-table book put out by the BBC and covering the cultural events
of the last century. Flipping through its pages, a section on the rise
of the assembly line caught my interest. In one quotation a son recollected
his father's experience: "The monotony of working that production line,
day in day out, was too much for him." Whether from insight or delirium,
something clicked, awaiting this chance to reflect on how the mass production
approach and a changing world affect our own profession.

Education as Assembly LineMany teachers labor in
schools and systems that are based on a mass-production model. I recall
at times feeling more automaton than mentor. The press of segmented hourly
lessons held learning captive to an inviolable bell schedule. A curriculum
cycle, inbred through repetition, signaled that if it's autumn, it must
be The Scarlet Letter. Although I love the novel and author, year
after year it becomes a challenge not to turn on the autopilot. Finally,
managing 150 students each day often ends in a routinization of human interactions
and functions best with the passive and obedient, not the active and idiosyncratic.
Yet, for all this, given the need to administer to large numbers of students,
codification and systemization avoid logistical nightmares inherent in
a case-by-case approach.

Socrates as Shiftworker?With his advent of the
moving assembly line, Henry Ford decreased the time it took to build one
car from 12 hours to 1-1/2. Similarly, People's Century notes, "In
just one generation, the tractor had transformed the age-old patterns of
farming and brought mass production to agriculture." In our own field,
since World War II, we have increased high school graduation rates from
25-75 percent. Ford's revolution yielded lower costs, higher wages, and
raised the standard of living for many unskilled laborers. As consequences
of globalization such as unrestrained markets and genetically modified
foods call into question the sustainability of large-scale production in
industry and agriculture, perhaps it's wise for education to reflect on
its own trajectory.

Does One Size Fit All in a "myYahoo!
World"?Those of us interested
in new ways to facilitate learning are frequently asked "The Question."
"Where's the educational research that proves that what you suggest promotes
student learning?" It's a great question to ask, because I suggest we didn't
ask it when we ventured away from the one-room schoolhouse and into our
brick graduation factories. A witty anecdote fits here. On visiting London
in his traditional Indian garb, Mahatma Gandhi was asked rather smugly
by a reporter what he thought about "Western Civilization." Gandhi responded
that he thought it was a good idea. The assumption that the status quo
in the West amounted to an achievement from the perspective of the East
is analogous to the assumption that our current mass-production model stands
on a respected research base when these practices clearly come from less-than-pedagogical
origins. Do students learn more under the mass-production model
or do more students learn? And do they really? Has this been measured?
Compared to what control group? Also, is the piece of paper students hold
at the end of the line worth much in a world where the JavaScript manual
I use was written by a 17-year-old during summer vacation, where the editor
of the bleeding-edge Web Techniques magazine is a former student,
and where most of the best educational Web sites are ThinkQuest projects?

Students as Game Boys and Spice GirlsStudies and anyone's casual
observation show that many students' Web experiences focus on computer
games, music, and chat. This is great because it shows that our learners
have discovered the Internet as a place where they can pursue their interests.
But as wireless communications companies and dot-coms strive to turn the
world into exactly what we want when we want it, asking students to shuffle
passively through our hallowed halls seems quaint, if not crazy. In the
old Soviet Union, workers in some factories used to take naps on their
idle workbenches. Their justification: "They pretend to pay us, and we
pretend to work." I suspect some students could play a variation on the
theme: "They pretend to teach us, and we pretend to learn." David Thornburg
has called Game Boys and the like "educational Uzis," which enter schools
tucked into backpacks and often boast more processing punch than most classroom
computers. Furthermore, their mindless, stimulus-response use sits at the
other end of the continuum from most of the higher-order, cognitive skills
we hope to elicit from students. If you'll indulge a little predicting,
I'll hazard a guess that the Berlin Wall of assembly line education won't
come down as the result of a major uprising, but silently as a classroom
full of students accesses a wireless Web of music and videos through jewelry-based
devices and invisible earphones. Those colleagues of ours who currently
accept their students' Web-enabled plagiarism will marvel at the classroom
control they now exercise over their "learners."

Is the Choice Brain Versus Cognitive
Collapse?On the other hand, most
educators I meet yearn nostalgically for just a little monotony in their
work lives. Although most school systems operate on a mass-production
model, the actual work that teachers do on the front lines is far from
simple. Repetition would be welcome in contrast to their constantly changing
responsibilities—technology, standards, frameworks, assessments, strategic
plans, and committees—let alone real-life issues touching our students—violence,
drug abuse, and family problems. Don't you feel sucker-punched by pendulum
swings and paradigm shifts? The old challenge may have been to endure brain-deadening
boredom. Nowadays wouldn't it be nice to find cognitive slots to calm all
that's buzzing in our minds? But does this mean that the only choice is
between numbing repetition and dizzying change? As the world around education
evolves and successful subcultures emerge within our central society, perhaps
it's time to abandon the assembly line as the only true model. Everywhere
I go, I see educators doing their best, but the machine maintains its relentless
pace. How can we achieve more in the same fleeting time? Assembly lines
are based on simplifying a task into easy, replicable steps that can be
performed by unskilled laborers. What's required of educators these days
are high levels of diagnostic, design, and delivery expertise. Attach
that to 150 students in 50 minutes flat! Yet, now that we're asking
good questions about the anticipated effectiveness of new learning strategies,
perhaps we can also eliminate those rust-belt remnants that no longer work.
And, could it be that some things don't fit together now, under stress,
because real education isn't about affixing pieces to inanimate products?
Students never were Studebakers. When the culture held a homogenous vision
and a relatively uniform workforce, students willingly moved down the line
to take their place in society. But as the world changes around us, certainties
are few. The People's Century continues, "Few of the assembly line
workers took the time to think about the changes; they were too busy worrying
about how to keep pace with the moving line." Doesn't this sound like almost
every educator you know?

A Call to ReflectionSo what's to be done? Education
could, as we've tended to, look to current business models for ideas about
new ways to organize the educational process. Total Quality Management
and clicks-and-mortar hybrids may have elements that could positively re-shape
our workplace called school. But I suggest it's a mistake to plagiarize
another's answers. Especially if those we copy from study a different subject.
As our new poly-cultural world teaches us that diversity and decentralization
can be forces for good, why not problem-solve for local needs within a
context, providing measurable feedback that can respond and redirect itself
as necessary? Where do we start? The following areas might be ripe for
experiments in re-tooling schooling:

Time. How do we work
within the constraints of time? Can technology and different delivery methods
be employed for some kinds of learning tasks? What timeframes work best
for the kind of cognition and affect you're hoping to achieve for your
age of learners? With the assembly line approach everything possible was
done to speed up and cut the cost of manufacturing. Are speed and cost
still the dominant imperatives? If so, can technology creatively maximize
our investments?

Place. Obviously,
society needs schools to play a daycare role. But beyond this, can internships,
mentoring, and building powerful individual and team work centers allow
some flexibility to keep the focus on student learning, not logistical
lockdowns? We have to decide if our real job involves crowd control or
cognitive coaching.

Product.What are
the real desired outcomes for our students? We can't be everything to everyone,
but by articulating a clear vision we can move toward realizing our goals.
One caveat is to be wary of the old "preparing students for the workforce"
rallying cry. How many jobs will be extinct or invented within the next
15 years? The silicon quickness of change makes it risky to focus on knowledge
at the expense of skills. Also, what keeps traditional classrooms functioning
may not be as "mission critical" for other environments.

Process. An even
bigger question than what student should learn is, "Who is responsible
for achieving this?" Thinking that teachers bear responsibility for what
goes on in the minds and hearts of their students might be politically
expedient, but pure nonsense. How can we help students manage their own
learning? Can we make educated guesses about the best processes to use
to attain success? What must happen for students to realize the point is
not to jump through our hoops but to make their own learning leaps? And
because this is harder work for students, what infrastructure of incentives
can we provide? Whose help do we need to build strong bridges between our
schools and communities?

Content and Context.
If the vision and some learning-friendly processes are in place, then we
can identify descriptors of successful achievement. Is it more important
to know facts or understand factors? When? Different strategies support
these different goals. Standards and related assessments are a step in
the right direction, but how silly are standards tied to grade level, not
actual student mastery? Sure it's a logistical headache to record individual
accomplishments, but can't we design technology to work for us? Also, isn't
it time to question the segmentation of content areas? What does cognitive
science tell us about how the brain works? Can we make our contribution
and turn these research findings into promising practices?

Working Conditions.
Change
isn't, unless it's sustained. What can we do that we can reasonably expect
to continue doing? The People's Century states, "Only a few weeks
after the assembly line creaked into motion, 10 workers were leaving for
every one who stayed." Ford's solution was radical: Cut the working day
and double pay. I suspect education will have to find its own answers.
One flicker I see in the crystal ball relates to this. Many shine dollar
signs in their eyes when they look at the earning potentials for online
education: exponential numbers of students worldwide, fewer teachers, scalability,
no bricks-and-mortar expenses, hooray! My prediction is that, like Henry
Ford's early employees, many teachers will turn their backs on a sweatshop
approach to online education.

Personal Growth.
If we're looking at what really promotes our students' learning, shouldn't
we appreciate that educators are learners as well? What aspects of the
job actually interfere with achieving our main goals? For example, do we
have to work in isolation? If we decide to entrust students with their
own learning, can we trust educators to diagnose how to facilitate this?
What support exists to maximize the gifts each of us bring and support
changing elements that don't contribute?

Once experimentation reveals
some answers, let's work together to design and develop helpful software
and systems, thereby pooling resources to create truly powerful tools.
I currently see districts and states investing in local databases of standards-based
lessons, online professional development, interactive teaching tools, etc.
These are helpful, but imagine what could happen if we worked together
instead of waiting for Yahoo! or Google to give us what they think we need.

Let's stop bowing to monoliths
and twitching to each new movement. It would be nice if this were the case,
but computers, standards, and whatever the next buzzword is aren't medicinal
pills, silver bullets, or magic potions. We have to be realistic and get
serious while there's still time to lead. Perhaps it's time to think differently,
to pause on calls for action, and to look carefully at what is clearly
broken and what you've seen that works. Trust your calling and educator's
instinct as you reflect on the teaching-learning process in your classroom
and school. And remember, in a profession that's all about humans and interaction,
getting reductive, uniform, and controlling rarely sings with the voice
of truth.